


Be Careful What You Pray For, Dean

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Fingering, Declarations Of Love, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Fingerfucking, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Heaven's Civil War, Hurt Castiel, Kissing, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:58:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unbelievable. Sammy actually has a date for once, and Dean is left alone and bored in their motel. He hates being alone because it makes him worry more about Castiel up in Heaven fighting his civil war. As he gets sucked into watching documentaries about love in the American Civil War (hey, he's not just the brawn in the family), he realizes that most of his prayers sound just like wartime love letters. Castiel hears him praying again and shows up wounded in the motel room. Will they manage to admit how they feel before the angel has to go back to the front?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Careful What You Pray For, Dean

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure how this will sit with most of you. I’m a Civil War historian and I wanted to play with the parallels between my war and Castiel's civil war. Sending soldiers off to the front is the same in any generation or circumstance. I hope you understand what I was trying to do here.

Good God, Dean was bored. He sat alone in a motel room, leaned against the headboard of his bed, while Sam ditched him for a girl. An actual _girl_. Don’t get him wrong, he was friggin thrilled that his brother might finally get some, but that didn’t make him any less bored.

The one good thing about being alone, though, appeared on television in his channel surfing. Civil War cannons popped up on the screen and he dropped the remote. Fine. It was his one nerdy interest. Something about all that artillery and fire power captivated him, not that he knew _too much_ about the dry historical facts. Still, he knew he was smarter than people typically thought of him. His brother didn’t inherit all the brains in the family. Dean just kept his tucked away.

He slurped beer and snacked on Doritos while watching the Union and Confederacy slam away at each other like rival football teams. As much as he enjoyed the documentary, every time the narrator used the phrase ‘civil war’ or some dead soldier referenced God in his letters, Castiel’s face flashed in his mind.

Damn it.

He didn’t need his mood dragged down by those uncontrollable longing thoughts again. The angel barely recognized he existed anymore since he got mixed up in his own civil war in Heaven. It was hard to picture that nerdy angel leading an entire army of rebellion but Dean reminded himself that he had always been a soldier. Soldiers fought and died all the time. Castiel might not answer his prayers someday.

Hoping to tune out his own spiraling thoughts, Dean turned up the volume and forced himself to concentrate on the documentary.

The narrator read a letter:

_If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness._

_But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights … always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again._

Then the narrator paused and Dean held his breath with widened eyes. “Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the first battle of Bull Run."

"Shit," Dean whispered.

No, no, no, no. He didn’t like the fear coiled up in his gut at all. It didn’t feel like empathy for that long dead soldier either. That just wasn’t Dean’s style. He dealt with dead dudes every day of his life. No, those words hit much closer to home than he liked. Something repressed.

Dean nearly flipped channels in search of something mind numbingly stupid to counteract the unwanted fear, but the next show caught his interest. _Sex in the Civil War_. He smirked, having never seen something about that particular topic. If that hunter knew shit about weapons, his knowledge of sex should have earned him a doctorate. Thankfully, the fear drained from his body and he opened a fresh bag of Cheetos.

As he watched the documentary that spared no details, he found himself thoroughly entertained by the number of dirty letters lovers sent to each other. He really didn’t think chicks back then had it in them to keep their soldiers so enticed in the field. Sure, the language sounded eloquent and fluffy, but it all amounted to one resolute theme - _I miss you, I love you, and I know you’re putting your life at risk for this greater cause, but I really just need to have sex with you for, like, days_. Dean could have gotten down with that if he was a soldier back then for sure. Sometimes a man just needed to feel like a man. He dug it.

"Awesome," he mumbled as he switched off the television for bed.

Dean curled into the blankets and saw that it was one in the morning. Clearly Sam’s date went well if he wasn’t back yet. He smirked against his pillow, hoping his little brother finally got laid and maybe learned to have a little fun without working so much.

Silence in the room filled Dean’s head. Darkness should have lulled him into his four hours easily but sleep eluded him. He thought about getting dressed and going out to find a girl of his own because that was what he used to do whenever Sam was occupied with other things. He tried to think remember the last time a pretty girl caught his eye. It had been quite a while, actually. Sometimes he checked out girls on the job but it occurred to him that it felt more like a habit than real interest.  The last time he truly had fun was … with Castiel.

Not knowing what to do about that, Dean rolled on his back with an arm tucked under his head. He knew a long time ago that the way he felt about the angel was _fucking complicated_ but it certainly wasn’t his place to drag a guy out of war to have a chick flick conversation about _feelings_. What would he say, anyway? Of course, sometimes he’d thought maybe Castiel’s feelings were _fucking complicated_ too, when he stared a little too long, or continuously rebelled for Dean, or told Sam they had a “more profound bond". Dean just didn’t have a right to feel that way about an angel of the Lord, even though that angel absorbed more human behavior each time they saw one another.

Even though he had no right to feel that way about Castiel, he couldn’t make himself fake interest in other people either. He tried more than once. Usually he ended up distracted and worried about how the civil war in Heaven progressed or if Castiel had been hurt. Hardly the ideal way to get it up for a woman.

Only in the deepest shadows of his mind did he entertain fantasies involving the angel. Those fantasies forced their way to the surface more and more the longer they went without seeing each other though. Sometimes he had to fake the need for an unnecessary shower just to get it out of his system, so to speak. He wanted Castiel, yes, but it cut a lot deeper than that too. Unfortunately, the _fucking complicated_ feelings looked like actually being in love.

Painfully alone in bed, Dean’s body tingled with interest in brushing those thoughts. He let out an irritated sigh and kicked a leg out from under the blanket for some air. He missed that best friend he’d fallen in love with but worry coursed beneath the longing.

"Cas, you got your ears on?" he said to the dark room. “You okay up there? I just … I dunno. I know you’re busy leading your army or whatever, and you’re probably not even listening, but I … I miss you."

The hunter stopped and stared at the ceiling. Maybe he shouldn’t pray. He considered the possibility that Castiel fought a battle at that moment and suddenly hearing Dean’s voice might have distracted him, or worse, gotten him hurt. Watching those documentaries on the Civil War hadn’t helped his imagination either. Sure, they were interesting, but every commanding officer getting blown to bits looked like Castiel to him.

Dean found himself talking again. “You know, I was watching stuff about our civil war on TV tonight. The American Civil War. Sammy’d never let me live it down if he knew I had a nerdy interest like that. Keep it under your hat, okay? They were talking about a lot of letters and stuff. Funny thing is most of those letters sounded like people praying to each other without really knowing it. I never thought about it that way before I started praying myself. I guess this even sounds like it could be a letter to you wherever you’re fighting right now."

"I think about you, Cas," he continued in a softer voice, fearful of saying it out loud. “I think about you all the time. Angels aren’t supposed to have emotions, so I don’t even know what to do about this. Watching that stupid show - all those people writing love letters to each other and all I could think was what would I say to you?"

He fell into silence for a time, remembering a lot of things that were left undone and unsaid. When he spoke again, it flowed so freely from his mind that he wasn’t even sure of the moment it shifted from silent thoughts to verbal admissions.

"I guess I’d tell you I didn’t mind that personal space thing so much. I only bitched at you to back up because I was afraid one day I’d have to do something stupid like kiss you. That’s the last thing we need, right?" He paused, a light smirk playing his lips. "What would you have done if I had kissed you? Do you even think about that? Do you think about me? Not all the angels are all virginal and repressed. So why do you avoid it?"

Dean backtracked before he let out his pent up frustration in a way that Castiel would interpret as anger. He wasn't angry per se. Not at the angel. More like at himself. He thought of Castiel somehow dying in that war up there without ever knowing how Dean felt and an undeniable wave of guilt and regret overtook him.

"You know I don't like to live with regret, Cas. If I want food, I eat. If I want booze, I drink. If I want sex, I go find it. I never had a problem finding any of that before either, but it's all been so empty lately. That's what regret is, I think. Emptiness. If I could do it all again, I swear I'd kiss you this time. You might not understand since you're not supposed to feel anything but you've been watching humanity forever. You know what we need when we feel love. I wouldn't have let you go to war without ... without showing you what I feel. But I don't know if you want that, so I never tried. I poured whiskey on it like I do with everything else."

"Don't you ever wonder what it's like to kiss someone, to bond, I guess, and to have sex? Maybe you already did and you never told me. Cas, I can't stand the idea of someone else touching you and taking your virginity. I guess I feel like I'm entitled to it after everything we've been through together. Kinda egotistical, huh? But I want to. I wanna know what you look like under that trench coat and that baggy suit. I wanna know what you feel like, what you taste like, what you sound like when you come, everything. And I don't get it. I really don't. I've never been attracted to men but I want you so bad, Cas. If I had one more chance... If I could do it all over again... I wouldn't be such a wuss. Not knowing if you'll survive the war..."

Words failed him, replaced by only the overpowering sense of regret. His breath wavered and an all too familiar sting filled his eyes. He blinked hard and rolled on his side, deciding that Castiel either didn't have his ears on or he was too busy to deal with the ramblings of a confused man. Dean was but one speck of dust in the universe, after all. But he knew he would never be the same again because of that angel.

Eventually, he drifted in that silent place between consciousness and unconsciousness, where the mind let down its barriers and accepted the honesty of the universe. He gave himself up to the silence.

Just as Dean started to fall asleep, a weight settled behind him on the edge of the bed. He flipped over and sat straight up, startled, as if his body responded to every surprise by wanting to fight. The dark shape sitting next to him leaned over, his face in his hands, and a faint white glow near his chest.

"Hello, Dean."

"Cas..."

The hunter couldn't believe it. Instinct made him want to touch the angel but he stopped the second he noticed the light came from within his chest, not near it. He turned Castiel by his shoulder, finding a thin gash leaking light along his jaw and another gash through his shirt over his pectoral muscle. Clearly wounded, the angel lifted his eyes to Dean's face and allowed him to see his struggle to hold onto hope. Dean lightly touched his jaw beneath the gash. Warmth exuded from the light - Castiel's true form inside the vessel.

"What happened?" Dean asked quietly.

"War," he replied.

"I thought you're leading your ... you know, your angels. Generals don't fight." Dean wanted to argue the point as if it might undo the wounds.

"There are times when a corps commander's life does not count."

The words sounded awfully familiar to Dean. Suddenly he remembered from watching television earlier that General Hancock had made that point to one of his subordinates on the second day of Gettysburg. No, he corrected himself. The third day.

"You were listening," he whispered as the realization settled.

Castiel, always uncertain of physical contact outside of combat, draped a hand over Dean's on the bed and nodded. "I always listen when you pray, Dean."

"Oh..." Dean didn't know how to process that. "So, you know then."

"Give me more credit. I alone put your body and soul back together after I pulled you out of Hell. I know you inside and out. Nothing in the universe could know you better than I do, except perhaps God." He studied Dean in a long bout of silence. That unsettling calm in Castiel never showed what he really felt. "Yes, Dean, I know. I... It was harder to come to terms with myself than it was for you." He looked away.

"What's that mean?" It sounded like rejection to him and natural defenses of anger began stalking him.

The angel didn't respond immediately. He stared through the dark room, a hand unconsciously lifting to his chest wound. When he spoke, his voice turned surprisingly human. "It means I wasn't created to experience emotions, but I have them because of you, and I don't always understand them. Emotions are peculiar. Very distracting from practical concerns. I find myself looking in on you even when I'm planning strategy with my subordinates in Heaven. Some of them have questioned the distraction but they don't know it's you, Dean. I can only conclude that this emotion is the same amorous attachment you've been experiencing toward me. I heard you praying tonight with the honesty I've waited for, and before I knew it, I was sitting here."

It wasn't flowers and poetry, but nothing about Dean and Castiel was, really. He knew what the angel tried to say and wondered if he could have done any better. As little as Castiel understood about emotions, Dean understood even less about expressing them. Walking around with constipated unspoken feelings every day certainly seemed a lot less vulnerable than wearing his heart on his sleeve like a sap. Still, knowing he wasn't alone gave him the strangest sense of comfort. Relief, even. He exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath for four years.

"How bad are you hurt?" Dean asked, leaning close and pulling open the trench coat.

"It's not of import."

"It is to me."

Castiel allowed Dean to shuck off the trench coat and suit jacket, which brought out more thin bursts of angelic light - one from his upper right arm, one from his inner left forearm, and the last from his shoulder blade. It appeared to the hunter that he'd been caught up in violent hand-to-hand combat, not that he pretended to understand how angelic wars were waged. Dean unbound the blue tie from around his neck and pulled off his baggy white dress shirt. He'd never seen Castiel so exposed but he needed to know about each and every wound, for his own mind.

"I'll heal," he said as if reading Dean's fear.

Eyes met and the hunter's hesitant hands lightly grazed Castiel's jawline. It was  _really_ happening, he thought through a flair of nerves like he was a damn teenager again. The vessel didn't bleed much at all despite being wounded in several spots. What bled was Castiel's true form - light, heat, and raw sensation - through the body.

Dean's hands turned Castiel's face to the side and he leaned in, placing a gentle, lingering kiss over the jaw wound. Light warmed his lips and touched his skin as if a tangible liquid made up his true form. Castiel's body relaxed in Dean's hands, which made Dean's body relax in turn. His nose brushed the angel's cheek as he drifted closer to his lips. Their kiss experimentally pulled and caressed each other until Dean's tongue tasted his angel. Yes,  _his_ angel. Castiel's throat emanated a soft sound of pleasure that went straight to the base of Dean's spine. He pulled away, their foreheads pressing together.

"You gotta tell me no if this isn't what you want," Dean whispered. "You gotta stop me. I can't be the one to walk away."

Hands curled into Dean's short hair and pulled his mouth into a renewed kiss. Castiel felt clearly inexperienced but hunger for Dean overtook him and he copied the way his hunter kissed. Light smacking sounds of a kiss deepening in passion, mixed with muffled, restrained groaned filled the room. A certain weariness in Castiel suggested battle tore him up more than he wanted to show.

Dean's mouth dropped to the angel's neck, wetly kissing, nipping, and licking a path along his throat and across his shoulder. Each of Castiel's wounds received the sort of loving, private attention that only a soldier could truly appreciate, and that only Dean could give in complete seclusion.

Somehow they tumbled on the bed, Dean leaning against the headboard and Castiel atop him, nestled between his legs. The angel's inexperienced hands pulled off the hunter's shirt and tugged off his jeans and black boxer briefs. Just as quickly, Dean tugged Castiel free of his conservative slacks and loose boxers. Nothing separated them anymore.

In the angel's typical curious manner, he eyed Dean's thick erection as if he'd never seen anything like it. His inquisitive hand stretched along its length and Dean's spine arched with unexpected bursts of aching pleasure. The angel glanced down at himself as if surprised that his own cock grew so hard. His eyes flashed back to Dean's face.

"C'mere," the hunter said, curling a beckoning finger.

Castiel crawled up to capture Dean's lips, their arms looping around each other's bodies. He wanted Castiel to loose himself in it for a night, to have nothing to worry about but each other. Combing a hand through his dark hair, he rolled his hips up against those lying on top of him. Castiel sucked in a sharp breath with the new sensation of cock rubbing against cock. The instinct of his body responded and slowly rutted his pelvis in the juncture of Dean's pelvis. Erratic moans spilled from both their lips into each other's necks and shoulders. They clung to each other with fingers digging desperately into flesh.

Somewhere on the edges of Dean's foggy mind, he thought that he wanted to fuck Castiel into the mattress but it occurred to him that it wasn't like being with a woman. He'd never slept with a man but he knew they needed lube, which he did not have at all. Why would he? That would have meant believing he was worthy of that angel's love.

The need to make Castiel forget the war meant more to Dean than his own pleasure, which was in itself a shift in his usual attitudes about instant gratification. He let Castiel use him as he pleased, and the angel pushed up above him on his hands. The way they stared into each other's eyes as their hips rolled and bucked into each other took Dean apart piece by piece until the only thing that existed was each other. He reached down, gripping their cocks snugly together, and experimentally jerking both of them into loud gasps and incoherent pleas for more.

Dean let go long enough to thoroughly lick his fingers while Castiel watched with heavy eyes and parted lips. He said nothing as he snaked his hand around his back and down his ass until finding his hole. The angel's eyes widened once he realized what Dean was doing, but Dean knew he'd understand soon enough. Gently, carefully, a finger pushed into Castiel, who squeezed his eyes shut and growled low in his throat. The rhythm pulsed slowly, allowing his body to grow accustomed to the stretch and intrusion. Soon, Castiel ground and rutted against Dean's hips with reckless abandon. The friction against his own cock, sliding around with their pre-come, broke Dean's concentration as he groaned hoarsely.

A second finger, then a third finger, and before long, Dean learned where the bundle of nerves sat that could make the angel buck wickedly into his hand. Hot breath and unintelligible words against Dean's neck coiled up the tension in his gut, ready to explode. Castiel trembled and stiffened just as Dean realized he must have been making loving appeals in Enochian.

A loud, sharp growl passed his clenched teeth as he came in thick, hot spurts all over Dean's stomach and chest. Listening to the angel ride out his first orgasm in Dean's hands pushed him over the edge. The force of his own release hit him like a bomb, nearly lifting them both off the bed.

The moment suspended time for both of them and neither seemed able to catch his breath. Castiel draped over Dean, a completely limp bundle of raw, exposed nerves. Tenderly, far more tenderly than people probably expected of him, Dean's arms slid around the angel's shoulders and waist. It didn't matter that they were both a sticky mess, sweaty, and unable to discern where one man ended and the other began. No more barriers existed.

He'd forgotten Castiel was wounded until he jerked in pain as Dean's forearm pressed into the back of his shoulder. "Sorry," he whispered.

"No, Dean. Don't ever be sorry." Castiel pushed himself off Dean and stretched on his back. "I've been wounded before. I'll be wounded again. A little pain is a small price to pay."

He knew it just the way he knew his purpose in life entailed possibly getting killed too. It still didn't make him worry any less. Not having those walls separating them anymore left Dean disturbingly exposed and vulnerable to having his soul ripped out again. Sam was his biggest weak spot before, but now ... things felt weaker when it came to Castiel.

"You gotta be more careful when you're fighting up there," he said.

Castiel tilted his head. "Why?"

"Because," Dean chuckled, "I want you back in one piece." His hand spread over Castiel's chest, protecting the wound there. "If you get hurt - I mean  _really_ hurt - come find me. Don't tough it out alone. Okay?"

"Yes," agreed Castiel. "I don't know how often I can get away."

"It's fine. We always seem to find each other, right?" reassured the hunter.

Dean kissed his angel and hoped against hope that the war would go his way. And as dawn pinked the eastern sky, he sent his soldier back to the front like so many others had in the generations before him. Letters of old became prayers whispered nightly with the hope that the soldier would return unharmed.


End file.
